Etowah Archaeological Field School: Week 2

Well, the clarity I had hoped for is coming in fits and starts. We had a lot of rain this week so we really only worked about 2.5 days. In that short period of time we came down on features in most of the units open. And with one exception, those features seem to be fitting into my expectations.

The two units in Grid 1 and 2 continued through that thick midden. The one investigating the easternmost anomaly came down on a series of black stains intruding into a red clay surface. 

That clay surface should be the plaza built in the Late Wilbanks phase (AD 1325-1375). On Friday Owen and Trey began excavating the features visible at 80cm and several have turned out to be single-set posts. We’ll see if we can make a wall out of them, but in general I am happy with that result.

Anna, James, and Tim have been working in the unit located on the westernmost anomaly in Grids 1 and 2. They are still going through midden but are coming down on a large burned daub concentration on Friday. I am hopeful that they will expose features soon as well. If we are right about the daub being associated only with single-set post buildings, this unit will find what we had predicted as well. 

At about 30cm below the surface in this unit Anna, James, and Tim found a lead ball—musket shot. We had hoped it might be a 16^th century Spanish artifact, but it looks like, based on size, that it is later and somehow found its way down the soil profile (probably through plowing).

Tara and Julia came down onto red clay subsoil earlier this week in their unit in Grid 5. After laboring through fairly sterile soils, they came down on a charcoal-rich feature and 5 small stains that look like post holes. In fact, Friday they excavated at least three of those and they are indeed small (ca. 10cm diameter) and deep (30cm or more) post holes arranged in a nice line along the west wall. 

The magnetic anomaly found in this grid should be a wall-trench building. So far we haven’t seen that trench, but the posts Tara and Julia found are smaller and deeper than those in the single-set post buildings. I suspect that once we study the profile of this unit we will find some indication that the trench was there but we missed it because it was so indistinct.

In Grid 6 Ben and Grant also worked through a fairly sterile few levels followed by a relatively sparse midden. They have come down on a floor that has what looks like a wall-trench running west to east across the middle of the unit. There also appear to be at least two single-set posts along the western wall. If I have interpreted the gradiometer data correctly for this location, Ben and Grant should have come down on a portion of a single-set post building. It may be there, but clearly there also is a wall-trench building. We will explore the gradiometer data more closely to see if we can find evidence for the two buildings here.

Will and Brendon have been working in a most confusing unit in Grid 7. I thought they were digging through sloping mound fill layers. However, after some work we figured out that they have a very nice wall-trench running at a diagonal through their unit—right where the magnetic anomaly goes through the unit. This is my poster child for a wall-trench. It is straight-sided, fairly deep ca. 30 cm, and has stains from a closely spaced row of posts at its base. Like the posts in Julia and Tara’s unit, these are small, but unlike those posts they are very close together.

Johann, a visiting Jesse Dalton, my son Avery (and various guest-screeners) opened up a new unit on what I expect to be a wall-trench building in Grid 4. They have excavated to about 40 cm so far and seem to have exposed what looks like basket loaded fill. 

Topographically this isn’t a mound. Instead it looks like a flood chute cutting through the site. If my interpretation holds, then the building we are searching for may have been buried beneath intentionally placed fills designed to level out a topographic low. It will be fun to see if my predictions come true. Barring more rain delays, we should know by the end of the day Monday.

We will start a unit on Grid 8 on Monday and hopefully find another wall-trench building. It may take until the end of the week to know.

Chet Walker comes back out Monday to set in and collect gradiometer and ground-penetrating radar data on more grids. That will allow us to set up more units in other areas of the site. So far we have concentrated on areas east of Mound A. Chet will allow us to move north of Mound A and final west of it to an area where no excavations have ever been conducted.

Now that we are starting to find features, our next big challenge is dating the architecture we are uncovering. We are finding that the features we have dug do not contain many temporal diagnostics and in many cases the middens above are sparse or mixed making their contents problematic for dating. Our fallback strategy is to collect all feature fills, process them through flotation, and hope we capture enough carbon to obtain radiocarbon dates. I will bring a flotation drum back to Cartersville with me on Sunday.

The crew is settling into our communal life and the house is running pretty smoothly. Mama got some needed (and I am sure welcome) assistance with cooking from Owen who has the patience of Job and the culinary acumen to help Mama produce good food for 17. We’ve got meal ideas from lots of people and a brussel sprout recipes from Grant to look forward to this coming week. Hopefully the rain will hold off and let us get some long, productive days in this week.

My 8-year old son came with me to the site this week. He had a great time driving the gator around and around the site, shuttling grad students, photo logs, equipment, and water hither and yon. That lasted for a couple of days and then he got the digging bug. We bought him a Marshalltown trowel and he went to work with Johann, Jesse, and crew in Grid 4. The photos below tell all.

This next week my daughter will join us. Then later in the week we’ll get some Boy Scouts out for a day. Our resident Eagle Scout, Owen, will be in charge that outreach effort.